• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, April 12, 2018

Google is in the early stages of developing a merchandising suite of analytic tools to improve performance and reduce complexity.

Some of the tools will be supported by data in Shopping that offers up insights into queries and the mix of products that consumers purchase together.

Courtney MacConnell, head of shopping at Google, told attendees at Merkle’s conference on Thursday that the company is focusing on an assortment mix and product suggestions, as well as pricing benchmarks.

For the assortment mix, she said, it will give brands insights into competitor data. For example, a company may sell running shoes, but not all the same types of running shoes as competitors.

The analysis will provide insight into the shoes the brand doesn’t sell, the prices of those items, and the query demand for them. It can help a brand determine the types of products in which they might want to expand.

MacConnell also said Google will also launch pricing benchmarks to tell when brands are charging too much for specific items.

“For those products competitively priced, we’ve seen customer search take those and funnel them out into their own campaign to bid up more aggressively,” she said, it really works well when brands have a strong price point and a little room from a return on investment perspective.

Google also continues to focus on its local inventory feed to give brands additional reach to consumers.

So Google developed an ad unit it calls Local Catalog Ads, which is powered by the brand’s local catalog feed, but it runs on the Google Display Network, allowing brands to create a local circular.

The Local catalog Ads provides the brands with a way to give consumers insights to nearby inventory.

In the merchandising analytics suit, MacConnell said the price benchmarks will have similar limitations to the ones in Merchant Center, but added “we’re also looking to take those insights and bring them into AdWords.”  

It will give marketers the ability to activity bid against the insights in AdWords, MacConnell said.